“This time I will praise the LORD.” (Joy in the Journey 92)

Leah is the woman wronged by her father and rejected by her husband. Her story is told in Genesis 29, where she is used by her father to deceive her cousin Jacob into more service. It is a marriage made without reference to her hopes or her happiness. She is simply collateral damage as men misuse their power.

Verses 31-35 record the birth and naming of Jacob’s first four sons, all by Leah. Interestingly, it is she who names the children, not Jacob (who seems completely disinterested). The names, along with the reasoning behind them, give us insight into Leah’s pain and the travel of her soul.

When the first son is born, she names him Reuben, “because the LORD has seen my misery.” He has seen that she is unloved by her husband. Her hope is that now Jacob will love her. He will discern where God’s blessing lies and do rightly by her. She will be cleared of shame and attract his affection.

But that seems to have been a forlorn hope. Her life is unchanged, her pain unrelieved. For when her second son is born, she names him Simeon, “Because the LORD heard I am [still] not loved”. The fond hopes that surrounded the birth of Reuben were clearly not fulfilled; Jacob loves Rachel only. He is oblivious to the legitimate needs of his first wife. She is neglected and passed over.

Leah’s pain continues unabated. When her third son is born she names him Levi, ardently hoping that now, at last, his birth will cause her husband to be attached to her. Her hopes appear futile. She has been placed in an intolerable situation and not by her own choice. She is deeply pained at Jacob’s rejection and longs for him to have a change of heart, that the anguish in hers might be healed. But Jacob is impassive and unmoved, blind to the LORD’s favour towards Leah.

How much pain and rejection can one woman bear?

When her fourth son is born, she names him Judah saying, "This time I will praise the LORD." No mention now of her husband, nor of her desperate desire to be loved and accepted by him (a wholly legitimate desire). Leah, so slighted and demeaned, is not abandoned in her misery and with the birth of Judah she recognises it. No doubt the grief remains but she is able now to praise the LORD out of her pain. Reconciled to her situation, she is able to rejoice in the God who is ever-loving and ever-loyal to his people.

"This time" her focus is higher than her husband and her joy greater than he could arouse or sustain. To be loved and accepted by the LORD and to know his favour means more than anything else could. He has begun to fill her horizons and to satisfy her deepest longings. He had been with her at every step of her long and arduous journey, holding her heart when it broke apart, gifting and growing the faith that has now begun to blossom.

Her story speaks to us so powerfully as we wrestle with life and with aspirations that maybe entirely proper but remain unmet. Our misery is seen and we are known by the LORD. He is not unmindful of us. We might be tempted to measure his care in the currency of fulfilled longings but that is a false step, even if understandable. The true satisfaction of our search for happiness and meaning and the deepest acceptance is found supremely in the Lord. He is precious beyond words.

Leah’s struggle with her sister and her husband would be a running sore that continues to fester. But perhaps it’s no coincidence that at this point, for a time at least, "she stopped having children." Her joy was full and overflowing in knowing and worshipping the LORD.

************

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;

For Thee all the pleasures of sin I resign;

My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour art Thou,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me

And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree;

I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,

And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;

And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,

I'll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;

I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now. 

(William Ralph Featherston, 1842-70)

The God of the double-lock (Joy in the Journey 91)

The first readers of the letter to the Hebrews were living in difficult times. Their faith was being assaulted and they faced strong temptation to refute Jesus as the unique Saviour and to become re-absorbed into their previous way of life. Their commitment was on a knife-edge; they’d reached a crossroads and were being pulled towards defection.

And so the writer/preacher speaks to them in 6:18 of a double-lock - the promise of God to Abraham, sealed with an oath made in his own name. This is intended to end all argument: the God for whom it is impossible to lie has spoken. This is more than a promise being set in stone; this is embedded in his own strength of character. Nothing could be more certain.

The upshot is that those who receive the promise, who stake their all on it, “may be greatly encouraged”. In a world of slander and the slippery pathway into temptation’s big blue eyes, there is a hope that has a secure foundation. It doesn’t rest in the performance of the readers; it isn’t guaranteed by their resolution. It depends entirely on the God whose promise is to bless all peoples - a promise sealed by his oath.

This secure hope has been taken back into God’s presence, carried there by “our forerunner Jesus”. That journey into the inner sanctuary, the throne-room of God, makes this hope “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure”. Nothing can change what God has said and what Jesus has done. Nothing can move him from his commitment to his promise; nothing can cause him to revoke the oath with which it was sealed.

Our world has many similarities to that in which this letter was written. Uncertain times, faith under duress, temptations aplenty. The death by a thousand cuts that is compromise. The sudden squall of emotional breakdown that demands comfort at any price. These are days when our souls can feel anything but secure, when we sense our weakness and vulnerability, as we sadly conclude that we, too, are “prone to wander”.

Here is a word in season for all who know that dark foreboding: we can be “greatly encouraged”. Not simply jollied along for a while but made strong in the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. The outcome is settled, the One who calls us does not lie - it is impossible for him to do so. He is the God of all truth. His loving commitment to rescue and make new, to destroy the one who held the power of death, to cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, that we might serve the living God - all this is immutable.

He does not change and we cannot be lost.

With such a hope before us, when all around is desolation and despair, the example of the readers of Hebrews carries great weight: they had “fled to take hold of the hope before [them]”. They ran, full pelt, to the One whose word cannot fail and whose salvation is secure. They saw their danger and didn’t wait to see if they might be able to tough it out; they went, in desperate haste, to the faithful One, the God of the double-lock.

We can make that journey ours, too.

************

There is a hope that burns within my heart,

That gives me strength for every passing day;

A glimpse of glory now revealed in meagre part,

Yet drives all doubt away:

I stand in Christ, with sins forgiven;

And Christ in me, the hope of heaven!

My highest calling and my deepest joy,

To make His will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,

A consolation strong against despair,

That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,

I find the Saviour there!

Through present sufferings, future’s fear,

He whispers ‘courage’ in my ear.

For I am safe in everlasting arms,

And they will lead me home.

There is a hope that stands the test of time,

That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,

To see the matchless beauty of a day divine

When I behold His face!

When sufferings cease and sorrows die,

And every longing satisfied.

Then joy unspeakable will flood my soul,

For I am truly home.

(Stuart Townend & Mark Edwards Copyright © 2007 Thankyou Music)

Scepticism dispelled: the bookends of John's Gospel

Bookending John’s gospel are two accounts of scepticism being dispelled by the Lord Jesus, tucked just after the prologue and just before the epilogue. And they have significant parallels:

That would seem to fit perfectly with John's stated purpose for writing his gospel: "that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing may have life in his name." (20:31). And maybe they help to throw into sharp relief the frequent temporal faith seen in the gospel and offer hope that it can be overcome.

Making the most of every opportunity (Joy in the Journey 90)

Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15,16)

Are you ready to "make the most of every opportunity"? Is your life being lived on the cutting-edge of evangelistic enterprise? Because this verse seems to suggest that it ought to be. Every day there are opportunities galore, if only you have eyes to see them, and your duty is to grasp them with both hands. Or at least it appears to say that if you ignore the context. Which is never the wise choice.

So maybe it's more about how the older translation puts it: "redeeming the time". Nailing down every last second of the day, making sure you can offer it to Jesus in full efficiency and complete effectiveness. No ragged edges or fluffed lines, because he's not interested in anything defective. As Depeche Mode sang, "Everything counts, in large amounts".

If that is the way to understand the text you can't ever afford to get it wrong, to freewheel during a single day or take your foot even an inch off the pedal. Not once. Because you've got to redeem the time - rescue it from the waste bin and recycle it into an always-on mode of discipleship. Anything less is failing to honour your Lord.

The good news is that neither of those explanations are correct. It's not about evangelism and it isn't about productivity. Those are not authentic readings of this text. Both are important in their respective contexts (one more so than the other, perhaps), but this verse is from somewhere else.

This is set within the daily grind of living as a Christian, in the in-between time of the here-and-now before the hereafter. The days when we get up reluctantly and go to bed wearily. When we see and hear sights and sounds that grieve us deeply, even as they pressure us towards acceptance and compromise. Days when we are tempted to fall in with the fruitless deeds of darkness rather than expose them. When the easy choice is moral slumber.

Faced with the starkness of those choices - between light and darkness, between wisdom and folly - Paul is urging us to redeem the time/make the most of every opportunity of living in the light. To approach our days in light of God's character and to act from his work within us. To serve his commission to be salt and light in a crooked and perverse generation. To find out what pleases him and to rejoice in making that our aim.

Such lives will, of course, invite questions about the Lord and requests for the reasons for the hope we have. They will be lives that sanctify each day, not through productivity hacks but in holiness and love, in Spirit-given worship, with heartfelt thankfulness "to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The days we're living through desperately need us to act as though our words and deeds matter. An open display that the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth will be the most clarifying and compelling reality for a world whose days are framed in folly and shrouded in shame.

We are now, by his grace, "light in the Lord". Translated and transformed. Our high calling and our dearest privilege is to serve our Saviour in the freedom he has so freely given. Choosing to walk in love, owning that all our days are his, that we and they have been redeemed, liberated from the dominion of sin and grafted into the grace of life.

************

Finding (Time) - by James K.A. Smith is a worthwhile read to go with this morning's reflection.

***********

My times are in Thy hand:

My God, I wish them there;

My life, my friends, my soul I leave

Entirely to Thy care.

My times are in Thy hand,

Whatever they may be,

Pleasing or painful, dark or bright,

As best may seem to Thee.

My times are in Thy hand:

Why should I doubt or fear?

A Father's hand will never cause

His child a needless tear.

My times are in Thy hand,

Jesus, the crucified;

Those hands my cruel sins had pierced

Are now my guard and guide.

My times are in Thy hand:

I'll always trust in Thee;

And, after death, at Thy right hand

I shall for ever be.

(William Freeman Lloyd, 1791-1853)

They also serve (Joy in the Journey 89)

It’s a moving story. The great poet John Milton finally lost his sight and was then bereaved of his wife. In the trauma of that first loss, he penned the sonnet ‘On His Blindness’ in which he reflects on the parable of the talents in the light of his own circumstances. He expresses in the poem his sense of frustration and perplexity over how the Lord could allow this enforced idleness, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

Many will be able to sympathise with his feelings. In Psalm 42, the writer expresses great heaviness of heart and cries out, “Why are you downcast, oh my soul?” Life had taken a turn for the worse and part of the anxiety and the pain were the memories he had of serving God: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God.” (v.4) Those times now seemed so long ago and so far away.

As we go through similar times, it’s good to recall that ultimately we are not defined by what we do. Of course, how we serve the Lord is important. Our gifts allow us to express who we are in relationship with him and our gratitude for his grace. But they don’t define us. We are not in the first instance called to serve but “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6). That clearly involves service but is not limited to it. Significantly, Adam and Eve’s first full day in Eden was a Sabbath on which they rested in the Lord who had made them. They were created to belong to him and that holds true in the new creation too.

Is part of our struggle because we view service too narrowly? John Milton wrestled with his difficulties and resolved them, affirming the superior value of bearing his mild yoke and declaring, “They also serve who only stand and wait”. We, perhaps, too quickly limit what serving God means. We define it in terms of activity but Milton had grasped the profound truth that it depends not on action for its vitality but on the attitude of the heart. Serving God is fundamentally concerned with a response to his grace that recognises and rejoices in the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life.

Yes, Jesus is Lord, even over all our infirmities. The Lord who is sovereign can use us just as he will. His purposes are not thwarted when our gifts are limited through age or infirmity, nor are his plans overtaken by events beyond our control. Paul had grasped this as he languished in a Roman prison. Despite the curtailing of his ‘active service’ he was still rejoicing in the Lord’s ability to use his circumstances and even the wrong motives of others to further the cause of Christ (Phil. 1:12-18).

We may feel chained by age or circumstance but “God’s Word is not chained” (2 Tim. 2:9) and by his Spirit he can still use us to display the glorious name of Jesus, in our sufferings, through our prayers.

The God we serve called light out of darkness and made all things from nothing. Out of the ‘nothing’ of our limitations and frailties, he can fashion something lasting and good that honours his Son. It’s interesting that Milton’s greatest piece of work, Paradise Lost, was written after his blindness. And the greatest work in all history was declared ‘Finished!’ when all seemed lost and the Suffering Servant forsaken by God. His ways are much higher than ours.

************

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."

(John Milton, 1608-74)

The waiting that brings things nearer (Joy in the Journey 88)

These are days of waiting and longing. For things to change for the better. For the return of some semblance of what passed for normal life before the pandemic. Waiting is not simply toughing it out; at times it can be so hard not to be forlorn, your heart a compilation of anxiety and misgivings, layered in swathes of unease.

Is there an end in sight? Perhaps. But we know there is danger in being too optimistic and so we hedge our bets, trying to play the long game a little while longer.

In his second and final letter to scattered Christians and churches, the apostle Peter is writing to make sure they will be able to remember, after his death, the very great and precious promises they have been given through the glory and goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In an unstable and hazardous world, they can know a genuine security in their Saviour.

Essential to their endurance is "looking forward to the day of God" (3:12). There is, genuinely, an end in sight. It cannot be timetabled but it is certain. A day when all that is broken will be restored, when the new heavens and earth will be unveiled in stunning beauty and righteousness. Everything will be laid bare in a judgement that brings final healing.

Along with Peter's first readers we are waiting for that day. A waiting that is often experienced as longing with the heaviest of hearts. A waiting that can also be an on-tiptoes eagerness, having seen and tasted now something of the beauty and wonder of the God who is good. A waiting that is sustained in hope by the Spirit of Jesus. Waiting for the one "whom having not seen, [we] love."

Often, waiting in this life means hanging on, passive and inactive, until you get the golden ticket through the post. This is different. Peter's encouragement is to live holy and godly lives as we long for that day - patient but not passive, living now in the light of what will be then. Embracing and embodying a truly living hope. Words, deeds, motives and desires being re-shaped into God-likeness, suffused with a joy that is both latent and patent.

And Peter augments the portrait he is sketching, adding in a final flourish that waiting for the day of God "speeds its coming". It hastens it, brings it nearer. It cannot make it more certain - that is guaranteed and sealed by the promise of the God who cannot lie - but it can somehow, mysteriously, bring it nearer.

Does he mean nearer in our perception but not in actuality? We know that longing often has the opposite effect - the holiday we're desperate for still seems an age away! No, however hard it is to rationalise what Peter is saying, his meaning is clear: our longing, birthed by the Spirit, is taken-up into the sovereign plans of God. Our eager, sometimes desperate desire to see Jesus, to see his world restored and all sin and evil removed, is not in vain and isn't beside the point. He has chosen to make it part of the resolution.

Into the dreariness and struggles of life comes a call to keep looking ahead, to keep pressing onward and upward, to not throw away the confidence that will be richly rewarded (Heb. 10:35). The time is coming when we see the King in all his beauty, the veil of time having been rent and our eyes opened to unbleached glory.

***********

Come, Lord, and tarry not;

Bring the long-looked-for day;

O why these years of waiting here,

These ages of delay?

Come, for Thy saints still wait;

Daily ascends their sigh;

The Spirit and the bride say, Come;

Wilt Thou not hear the cry?

Come in Thy glorious might,

Come with the iron rod;

Scattering Thy foes before Thy face,

Most mighty Son of god.

Come, and make all things new;

Build up this ruined earth;

Restore our faded paradise,

Creation's second birth.

Come, and begin Thy reign

Of everlasting peace;

Come, take the kingdom to Thyself,

Great King of Righteousness!

(Horatius Bonar, 1808-89)

The One Who Lifts Your Head

Do you have days when you feel that you’re facing overwhelming odds? You have torrents of troubles and sorrows that sheet down like rain. There are people who choose to be at odds with you, who seemingly want to negate your life. Legitimate opportunities are closed off and your contribution is annulled and labelled worthless?

As Psalm 3 opens, David is expressing his own version of that kind of experience. The problems and the problem people are many. It’s unrelenting. They just never give up.

And from there he speaks words that are ours to take hold of with the hungriest of hearts:

    But you, O LORD, are a shield around me,
    My glory, the One who lifts my head high.
    I call out to the LORD,
    And he answers me from his holy mountain.

The living God, the eternal One, is David’s protector, his shield, his defender and provider. His refuge against the onslaught. There are no gaps in his defences, no weak links in the chain of his loving commitment. His guardian care is invincible.

Those who stand against David hold him in derision and scorn. They pour shame like water upon his head, they trash his reputation with fierce falsehoods. This is his downfall, the end of his career, the termination of his tenure. He’s at their mercy and they will show him none.

But David’s head is lifted high, in honour. He belongs to the Holy One and is vindicated by him. He is David’s glory - the One who stands up for him, who is unashamed to be fully aligned with him. The One who shares his own status with David, gives him his name and covers him with his own royal robes.

Our Lord Jesus willingly aligns himself with us, declares that we are his and defends us as his own beloved people. He will not allow us to suffer final shame.

And the raising of our heads that takes away all our disgrace and dishonour, that lifts us into living hope, is the action of the One who bowed his head and gave up his spirit, under the enormous load of sin’s desolation upon the cross. The one whose sacrifice saves us from all the bitter fruit of our fallenness and cleanses the squalid, fetid ground of our hearts.

David calls to the LORD and is answered from his holy hill - from the temple itself, the very centre of God’s presence on earth. This is no incidental assistance. But another ‘holy mountain’ would in time draw our eyes and fill our hearts with astonishment, the hill just outside the city walls where our Lord Jesus offered himself for us. From that hill comes the Lord’s answer: “It is finished.” From there he speaks words of full forgiveness, words that promise paradise.

Within the torrential downpour of all life's struggles, we are held and honoured, because the King of Glory is our shield, our Saviour.

So that we don't cause offence (Joy in the Journey 87)

There’s a strange little scene at the end of Matthew 17, all about paying taxes for building the temple and finding coins in the mouths of fish. Bizarre, really. And yet it’s not.

Peter is asked whether Jesus pays the temple tax. Interesting question, because rabbis and priests were exempt. Well, Jesus does pay it - Peter knows that. He isn’t in the exempted categories, even though Peter might have expected him to be (after all, he’s just recently acknowledged Jesus to be the Messiah).

It clearly puzzles Peter because the Lord raises the question with him. He asks him who it is that pays taxes in a country, the children of the king or others? The answer, as Peter well knows, is ‘the others’. So, says Jesus, the king’s children are excluded. The burden doesn’t fall on them. So far, so straightforward.

But here’s Jesus’ point: if the children are exempt then he, of all people, has no need to pay the temple tax. And neither, it seems, does Peter - for all who follow Jesus as Messiah become themselves children of the heavenly King whose temple it is. So why does Jesus pay it - and why will he pay it on Peter’s behalf too?

“So that we may not cause offence.”

The reason for the Son of God coming into the world is to rescue, not to repulse. He hasn’t come to gloat and parade his position or rest on his rights. He has come to serve, in the deepest humility and meekness. Such service doesn’t negate his identity, it flows from it.

And the same is to be true for all who are children of God through being united by faith to the Son. The gospel may well give offence but that alone must do so. Our attitudes and actions must not.

This is underscored in the very next scene (it’s often best to ignore chapter breaks) where the Lord Jesus states that “whoever takes the lowly position of [a] child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Central to life as a child of God in this present world is a genuine humility that doesn’t look to exploit its position, nor angle for personal power or make a case for exceptional treatment.

Christian identity is manifested through love. The true posture for all who follow and serve Jesus is one of lowly service, in all gladness. Within society, in our neighbourhoods and workplaces, in school or college. Being willing to go the extra mile, to serve without expectation or desire for reward. To do so without ulterior motivates.

The fear of losing out that naturally snipes at our hearts is dispelled by the generosity of our Lord Jesus Christ: he will provide for all our needs. Peter is to go out and find in the mouth of a fish an amount that will cover both Jesus’ and his tax bills. In the Lord we have all could desire and all that is necessary to sustain our service and to cultivate a contentment that will be evident in all our words and deeds.

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My heart is resting, O my God,

I will give thanks and sing;

My heart is at the secret source

Of every precious thing.

Now the frail vessel Thou hast made

No hand but Thine shall fill;

The waters of the earth have failed,

And I am thirsty still.

I thirst for springs of heavenly life,

And here all day they rise;

I seek the treasure of Thy love,

And close at hand it lies;

And a 'new song' is in my mouth

To long-loved music set:

Glory to Thee for all the grace

I have not tasted yet!

Glory to Thee for strength withheld,

For want and weakness known,

The fear that sends me to Thy breast

For what is most my own.

I have a heritage of joy

That yet I must not see;

The hand that bled to make it mine

Is keeping it for me.

My heart is resting, O my God,

My heart is in Thy care;

I hear the voice of joy and health

Resounding everywhere.

"Thou art my portion", saith my soul,

Ten thousand voices say;

The music of their glad Amen

Will never die away.

(Anna Laetitia Waring, 1823-1910)

The words that hold your dearest treasure (Joy in the Journey 86)

With his trademark wry humour and punchy insight, Steve Turner wrote a poem about short poems:

Short poems

are fun.

You can see at a glance

whether you

like them

or not.

Psalm 117 comes and goes so quickly. It’s definitely in the category of ‘short poem’. It’s so easy to pass it by, to accept what it says and to hurry on to the larger pastures of Ps.118 and then on into the sprawling continent that is Ps.119.

But this psalm says, in compressed form, everything we need to know, everything that the rest of scripture opens up to us. You can tell at a glance that it holds your dearest treasure:

    Praise the LORD, all you nations;

    extol him, all you peoples.

    For great is his love toward us,

    and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

    Praise the LORD.

It insists, demands, that all nations are called to praise the LORD - that the whole story of the Bible is expansive and not exclusive. That embedded within the story of Israel is a larger story that will, in time, burst its banks and life will overflow to the nations.

This is a song of the most extensive hope and joy. For all peoples. A light has dawned over the whole earth - the sun of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings.

And at the heart of that story - its beating pulse and its pulsating power - is the great love of God. Love that is for us, towards us, tilting the whole life of God in our direction. Love that enters the fray and frees the captives. Layering divine love into all the crevices of the heart and every moment of our lives. Love that will heal the nations. Love that finds its fullest revelation on a hill just outside Jerusalem, “where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”

That love was enacted in the truest and most tenacious faithfulness - a commitment to embrace and save, to heal and restore. A pledge that endures for ever. Time and chance and all the malevolence of evil could not dampen the integrity and intent of God to enter time and space - the Son of God becoming the Son of Man, that the sons of men might become the children of God (as someone so helpfully put it).

With a few deft words, the psalm lays before us the whole sweep of human history and unveils the central reality of God and his ways. It needs no explanation (so please pardon these words); its beauty is plain for all to see and offered for all to savour.

Which is what we ought to do with it. Lay it before our sight and enter its lines, in wonder and worship. This is our God, this is his world, these are his ways. And we are his, forever his.

************

Timeless love! We sing the story,
praise his wonders, tell his worth;
love more fair than heaven's glory,
love more firm than ancient earth!
    Tell his faithfulness abroad:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

By his faithfulness surrounded,
North and South his hand proclaim;
earth and heaven formed and founded,
skies and seas, declare his Name!
    Wind and storm obey his word:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

Truth and righteousness enthrone him,
just and equal are his ways;
more than happy, those who own him,
more than joy, their songs of praise!
    Sun and Shield and great Reward:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

(Timothy Dudley-Smith, 1926-)

Be on your guard (Joy in the Journey 85)

It's disconcerting to find you just haven't got hold of something. You thought you'd made all the right connections and understood what was being said or done, but it's become clear your brain was misfiring. The truth has been pointed out and you now see just how far off you were.

That's how it must have been for the disciples when the Lord Jesus warned them "against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Mt. 16:6). They made a verbal connection with their having forgotten to bring along bread for the journey - and in doing so showed just how little they really 'got' what he'd said. On this occasion, their two plus two didn't make four. Far from it.

What they showed was just how naïve they were - and how much they therefore needed Jesus' warning. They were deeply susceptible to the insidious effect of unbelief, of the corruption of their best intentions and hopes by calloused cynicism.

In treating the Pharisees and Sadducees as one group, our Lord underscores the danger he detects. They believed different things and were frequently at odds with each other - but both were united in opposing Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah. The disciples, alas, simply hadn't begun to discern the unholy alliance that faced them, nor its capacity to deceive and lead astray. They frequently judged by shallow appearances which proved to be far from accurate.

We live in similarly disturbing times. No less than the disciples do we need to hear our Lord's words: "Be careful...be on your guard." We, too, are vulnerable and susceptible to the spirit of the age. Any denial of that is an immediate breaching of our defences.

Where does genuine insight come from? We're shown in Peter's experience. When asked about the identity of the Son of Man, he speaks with conviction: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." How had he worked that out? What special ability did he possess? Well, he didn't. The insight came from above: "this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven."

If we see Jesus more clearly and have begun to cherish him, it has been gifted to us. Humility and gratitude are always the order of the day.

But once given it has to be fiercely guarded - and Peter falls at the first hurdle. He is offended that Jesus declares his pathway to glory lay via the cross. But his thoughts and feelings are now from below: "you do not have in mind the concerns of God but merely human concerns." In opposing Jesus he was playing the part of Satan, tempting our Lord away from his mission. Ouch.

We always need the Lord to illuminate our understanding. It is sheer folly to rely on our abilities or to hold lightly to the truth that has been so graciously given to us. The challenge will often come at the point that is most painful and disconcerting to us, at the heart of the gospel call to follow Jesus as Lord, come what may. We need to be ready for that.

Never have we more needed to heed the words of Jesus: "Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation". And to rest our all upon his promise, "None shall snatch them from my hand."

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Christian, seek not yet repose;

    Cast thy dreams of ease away;

Thou art in the midst of foes:

    Watch and pray.

Principalities and powers,

    Mustering their unseen array,

Wait for thy unguarded hours:

    Watch and pray.

Gird thy heavenly armour on;

    Wear it ever, night and day;

Ambushed lies the evil one:

    Watch and pray.

Hear the victors who o'ercame;

    Still they mark each warrior's way;

All with one sweet voice exclaim,

    'Watch and pray.'

Hear, above all, hear thy Lord,

    Him thou lovest to obey;

Hide within thy heart His word:

    'Watch and pray.'

Watch, as if on that alone

    Hung the issue of the day;

Pray, that help may be sent down:

    Watch and pray.

(Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871)